Watson voices rethink of role

Chief cricket writer for The Age

Frustrated: Shane Watson may call it a day with the ball but hold on to his bat. Photo: Sebastian Costanzo

SHANE Watson has suggested for the first time that his role as an all-rounder in all three formats is unsustainable, and hinted he might consider becoming a specialist batsman.

The injury-plagued all-rounder broke down for the second time this summer during the Boxing Day Test and said he would talk to Cricket Australia about how to stay on the park, even if it meant scaling back his bowling.

''[The injury] was good after Hobart but leading into this Test it started to play up a bit and unfortunately didn't hold together throughout this Test match,'' Watson said.

''I am certainly doing some thinking about what my prospects are moving forward, with my bowling especially. I have to sit down with the hierarchy and work out the best way to manage things so I can put some cricket together for a period of time.

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''I especially want to get some continuity together with my batting. When you get injured it makes it difficult to build some momentum. It was nice to score some runs in this innings, but it means I am going to be out for a couple of weeks.

''At the moment I am trying to do the best job I can with bat and ball, but my batting is being affected in certain ways and obviously I can't stay on the park consistently. And that's where we have to sit down and try to work through it.''

Captain Michael Clarke said he wouldn't scale back Watson's bowling workload unless he changed his mind about being an all-rounder.

Watson was more vulnerable to injury than usual leading into the Boxing Day Test because he had bowled a career-high 47.4 overs in Hobart, where Ben Hilfenhaus broke down with a side strain.

The vice-captain was only expected to bowl a handful of overs at the MCG even before he re-injured his left calf.

The setback happened while bowling in the first innings, but Watson went on to make 83.

''It's a tough one,'' Clarke said. ''There are certainly times I try and look after him, especially batting in the top four … the closer you get to us having to bat I try and pull him off and make sure he's got time to freshen up before batting. That certainly was a factor in moving him down to No.4, that it let us use him more with the ball and still have time to recover before he walked out to bat. Unless anything has changed with Shane, I still see him as a fantastic all-rounder.

''I've said for a while, that is really decided by Watto. He wants to be an all-rounder; so, it's about, if you're an all-rounder you've got to bat and bowl.

''Unless that changes in his mind it won't change in mine, we speak about it often and we are very lucky to have such a good player who can do both. Unfortunately in Hobart we lost Ben Hilfenhaus, so we really needed his overs. In this Test, no matter how many runs Sri Lanka scored in both innings, I don't think he would have bowled anywhere near as much as he did in Hobart.''